Netflix Says It Will Have Twice As Many Of Its Own Shows Next Year

Get ready to binge—Netflix's content chief said this morning that the company will launch even more of its own original shows and feature films next year.

The company's slate of original programming will include 31 scripted series in 2016, compared to the 16 just this year. In addition to the dozen documentaries and 10 stand-up specials released last year, the company will soon have 30 kids' series and 10 feature films, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said at the UBS Media Conference in New York today.

"This is high quality stuff," he said. "This is programming people want to watch."

For Netflix, original content has proved a solid bet. Not only has the company found an audience for shows like Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Master of None, Sarandos said, but original shows make it easier for Netflix to reach a truly global audience.

Netflix, after all, can already be watched in more than 80 countries, and it has said it plans to have a presence in 200 by the end of 2016. But the company has found obtaining global distribution rights for networks and studios' content to be a challenge.

"I don't know if it's more difficult than I expected, but it has not been an easy road," Sarandos said. The problem, he said, is that studios sell rights regionally, but Netflix wants to license content for a global audience. "It's a big change."

With its willingness to spend big, Netflix can develop a show like Narcos, on its own, Sarandos said, owning the rights to distribute it globally and finding a massive international audience. "It's the first flavor of what global television can be," he said of the show, which is largely in Spanish, filmed in Colombia, featuring Brazilian stars, and produced by a French company. The US-centric holiday special A Very Murray Christmas, meanwhile, has found success in Japan, he said.

While original programming is a boon for the company, Sarandos said that Netflix has no interest in getting into two big areas of traditional TV: live news and live sports. "If there was a model where we create our own sports league, that would be interesting," he said. "But it's not really what we're chasing."

So, yeah. Netflix is killing it—and it has the rising stock price to prove it. As it continues its global expansion next year, the question is not only whether it can continue to grow its subscriber base, but whether it can continue its streak of producing sought-after shows.